Quirky corporate criminal's story takes a funny turn

Mark Whitacre wasn't amused when the feds locked him up for almost nine years after he blew the whistle on one of the juiciest corporate scandals ever.

Now he's being played for laughs by A-list actor Matt Damon, and he's going along with the joke.

A trailer for the coming motion picture, "The Informant," shows Whitacre as an unlikely source of comic gold.

On its face, his story sounds relentlessly serious: This one-time top executive for Decatur, Ill.-based Archer Daniels Midland Co. secretly gathered evidence of brazen price fixing at the agribusiness giant, while fooling his FBI handlers about an embezzlement scheme he ran on the side. Nobody at the company or the bureau found it funny at the time.

But during three pressure-packed years as a mole, Whitacre acknowledges, he went off his rocker. And the Steven Soderbergh-directed film makes hay off his self-destructive antics.

"Michael Clayton" never popped open his briefcase during an illicit business meeting to fiddle with the hidden tape recorder. "Erin Brockovich" didn't wander outside in the middle of a rainy night to clear her driveway with a leaf blower. "The Insider" wouldn't be so clueless as to walk into his office one morning narrating the scene for the benefit of those surreptitiously listening in: "Good morning, Liz Taylor, secretary."

Whitacre really did those things, and more.

Billed as a "dark" comedy, "The Informant" looks more like a screwball comedy based on its trailer, with the title character as the chief executive wacko.

After putting on weight, growing a mustache and donning oversize glasses for the role, Damon stares out from Warner Bros. publicity photos like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" in a business suit. He has captured the Whitacre of those days, sounding at once naive, earnest and delusional as he tells an associate to call him "0014," since he's "twice as smart" as James Bond's "007."

Whitacre these days is out of prison and feeling fit. Unlike so many 52-year-old executives, he's got a challenging job that he loves and a family that stuck by him through a terrible ordeal.

By his account, he cooperated with the movie, which is scheduled for wide release on Oct. 9, reviewing the script, providing props such as his 1990s-era business card and consulting on details.

He and his wife, Ginger, attended a preview at the Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, Calif., last month. "Ginger and I both loved it," he said.

In his heyday, Whitacre was the boy wonder of agriculture. A Cornell University PhD biochemist, he took over ADM's fastest-growing division while still in his mid-30s.

He started stealing money from his employer, and when the FBI began asking questions, he panicked. At his wife's insistence, he told the agents about ADM's price fixing, which ultimately resulted in a then-record $100 million fine. But he kept up the secret embezzlement, figuring he could get away with it as long as he cooperated with the antitrust probe.

"I did some crazy things. I did all that stuff. I don't know why," Whitacre said in an interview. "I admit to my mistakes now. You have to be at a level in your life that you're open about it."

The movie's appreciation for the farcical element in corporate crime makes sense given the times, he said: "Especially with the current economic climate, serious movies don't sell."

Whitacre's current employer, a small biotech firm called Cypress Systems Inc. that specializes in producing nutrients such as selenium, knew about him from his Cornell days and took note that law enforcement officials involved in the case have since defended him, Whitacre said.

"If you go to prison, it's a major strike, but they're not going to find a lot of selenium biochemists in the world," he explained. "They knew me beyond the case. That case was not my finest hour, but it's not my whole life."

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Mark Whitacre

Born: May 1, 1957, raised in Morrow, Ohio

Education: Doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from Cornell University; bachelor's and master's degrees from Ohio State University. Obtained several correspondence-school degrees during eight years and eight months in federal custody.

Employment: Chief operating officer and president of operations at Cypress Systems Inc., a Fresno, Calif.-based biotech company. "To come out of prison and get any job is a real blessing," Whitacre said.

Personal: He and wife, Ginger, a teacher, are celebrating their 30-year wedding anniversary. She visited him in prison every weekend, Whitacre says.

Quotable: Once you openly accept your guilt, he said, "It's hard for anybody to throw anything negative at you."